Mapping educational effectiveness and resource efficiency

One of the instruments we used to engage our ESCAPE partners was a simple two-dimensional matrix. The matrix has axis for educational effectiveness and resource efficiency.

we found this to be a valuable tool to work with our partners in developing better educative assessments that are not overly demanding on their time. The following video sets out the matrix.

It's Quality Time!

One of the things that has struck me this week is the how often subtle changes to a modules delivery can have quite wide ranging changes to the learning interactions that take place. The example I am thinking of is the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Marketing Module. The module coordinator - using his experience from previous years, has posted a set of FAQs on his module Studynet site. The questions address points and issues that were raised by students last year and were generated from the experiences of the whole module team.

As a result, module team's interactions with students - both face to face and online, been able to focus more on developing the students understanding of the material covered in the module . Students can be pointed in the direction of where to find specific information. This leaves the team time to develop the "high quality " dialogue and interaction with students that can really support and personalise the students learning. This simple strategy(one of a number adopted by the team) of using a well primed bank of FAQS has acted as a filter so that the more complex and interesting questions that students generate can form the basis of meaningful discussion with the module team.

Here comes the data (1) ...

We are now starting to see the fruits of our labour on the ESCAPE project. Some of the 'fruits' arise when we talk to staff about their assessment practice and resulting experience whereas other 'fruit' arises from observations of student performance and their engagement with their studies. I thought I would share some of what we are finding ...

A new module (not one of the original ESCAPE modules) wanted help with Peer Assessment. The member of staff was already engaging her students with peer assessment and hence were reaping numerous learning gains.

* Students were able to see how their peers responded to the same task
* Students were able to engage more with the marking criteria and standards
*

Previously, however, she was kept very busy after the peer assessment by dealing with more than expected students questioning their marks. Whilst it is highly appropriate that the students are exposed to a fair and reliable assessment, many of the efficiency gains made by the staff member were lost due to the need to deal with students on a one-to-one basis.

With the help of the ESCAPE project we were able to re-purpose a web-based data collection facility (developed to support computer based assessment). Using the web based data collection facility we posted to the students a series of questions (asking them to reflect on their own submission and the peer assessment process. This was an addition to the work previously done and hence created addiction learning gains. Importantly, we also included an opportunity for the students to 'comment on their mark' and note that if they were over or under marked to provide evidence where this was the case -with reference to the marking criteria used in the peer assessment process. The result was of which a vast reduction in 'additional' time required by the staff member to look at the concerns.

This addition was a real win-win. Students were now reflecting on the process (and sharing the reflections with staff) and the staff were reaping efficiency gains.

Slightly self-promoting but this typifies exactly the type of things this project is about. Using technology (led by pedagogy) to reap learning and efficiency gains.

I can't see this technology-supported intervention stopping when the project finishes.

A presentation to the universities Academic Quality and Enhancement Committee (AQEC)

I was invited to present some examples of effective assessment and feedback practice to the Universities Academic Quality and Enhancement Committee (Tuesday 26th Jan 2009). Although the presentation was not specifically related to our ESCAPE activity it was a committee that the ESCAPE project needs to touch. If we are to be successful in making our activity mainstream and embedded then such committees need to be shown the value of our endeavours and we need them to help us respond to our challenges. Working with enthusiasts and champions is not enough. By definition, ESCAPE has an explicit intent to be sustained long after the project funding has finished.

I started by outlining the importance of assessment and feedback - both in terms of the challenges raised by the results of the National Student Survey (NSS) and also (and ultimately) learning! Any meaningful and aligned curricula has assessment at its core.

I then moved to show some work that Helen Barefoot and I have been doing in terms of collecting case studies from the LTI and more importantly overlaying (on the case studies) principles of good assessment and feedback practice. The case studies are tagged to help staff find resources relating to their challenge.

I think (hope) the committee liked the presentation and also the pragmatism of recognising that academic colleagues are busy and so not only do we need to collect resources but help staff access them in ways that meets their needs.

The perpetual problem was raised about engaging students with feedback and the frustrations felt by staff in producing feedback that is not even collected let alone used by the students. I have my own views on why this is the case - but in many cases I think the problem resides with us. Just as assessment creates activity so too should feedback. Feedback also should create consequences.